Planned Parenthood Seeks Injunctions Against Florida Order to Halt Illegal Second Trimester Abortions

UPDATE, Aug. 19, 2015: The Tampa Bay Times is reporting that the Agency for Health Care Administration sent a letter on Wednesday, August 19, 2015, to Planned Parenthood attorney Julie Gallagher stating, “Your client, Planned Parenthood, continues to misrepresent to the media that AHCA has changed its position, and Planned Parenthood clinics in Florida may now provide unauthorized second trimester abortions. This is false.” The news article indicated that the letter also informed Planned Parenthood that the investigations are still ongoing.

A previous letter sent by the AHCA on Tuesday apparently led Planned Parenthood to believe that the AHCA had acquiesced and that they could continue abortions up to 14 weeks. Today’s letter clarified that was not the case. Tuesday’s letter “led Planned Parenthood to drop its request that a judge intervene to stop license sanctions from going forward.”

Tallahassee, FL — Three Florida Planned Parenthood abortion clinics that were cited for committing illegal second trimester abortions earlier this month, filed Monday in Leon County Circuit Court seeking an emergency injunction that would allow the facilities could resume the later abortions for which they are not licensed.

“Planned Parenthood makes a lot of money doing the more expensive second trimester abortions, so for every day they are blocked from doing them means money out of Planned Parenthood’s pockets,” said Operation Rescue president Troy Newman. “Planned Parenthood’s efforts to continue second trimester abortions is all about money and has nothing to do with helping women.”

On August 5, 2015, the Agency for Health Care Administration sent letters to Planned Parenthood abortion centers in St. Petersburg, Ft. Myers, and Naples notifying them that they needed to immediately halt abortions done after 12 weeks. Records discovered during facility inspections showed that all three abortion facilities were conducting abortions two weeks into the second trimester of pregnancy.

The letters ordered Planned Parenthood to halt abortions done after 12 weeks, which is considered the end of the first trimester of pregnancy. None of the clinics are licensed to do abortions beyond the first trimester.

Planned Parenthood admits that it does abortions through 13 weeks, 6 days gestation as counted from the woman’s last menstrual period, but claims those abortions are still considered first trimester procedures.

A fourth Planned Parenthood abortion facility in Pembroke Pines was cited for failing to follow protocols related to the disposal of the remains of at least 25 aborted babies. The remains were stored in red biohazard bags in a freezer until they could be picked up for “routine disposal” but several were not properly sealed to prevent leakage. “POC” logs, referring to “products of conception” were not kept and the remains were not labeled as required.

The inspections that discovered the violations we the result of an investigation ordered by Gov. Rick Scott after the Center for Medical Progress released undercover videos that revealed Planned Parenthood’s involvement in the selling of aborted baby remains for profit.

Inspections of all 16 Florida Planned Parenthood abortion facilities showed that none of them were involved in selling fetal remains from abortions.

Over a dozen states have launched investigations into Planned Parenthood’s activities in response to the CMP videos. So far, four states, Florida, Massachusetts, Indiana, and Georgia have reported that Planned Parenthood does not traffic in fetal remains in those state. However, Operation Rescue has documented that the University of Massachusetts Medical School has purchased $29,000 worth of “fetal cadaverous tissues” from a company that harvested aborted baby remains from California Planned Parenthood clinics.